The Magic Kingdom (17 page)

She knew her impatience was hardly the Mary Poppins ideal, but it did not do to betray one’s character. She admitted when she was wrong. She was wrong in this instance. She admitted when she was wrong but she was all-forgiving. All right, she
did
play favorites, but she could have played God, come, were it required of her, to terrible determinations—who should live, who should die—and come to them, moreover, according to the same sound principles that permitted her to decide who should get the caramel, who must take the toffee.

She knew how she must appear to them, of course. People so loved their stereotypes. Living for others the sublimate life. They would put her down as a dried-up old maid. Quiet as a mouse and hung up in the love department on her male employers or, less flattering and more disgusting, her prepubescent charges. Playing with them, she suspected others suspected, in the tub, soaping and tickling their little thingummies till they stood up in the bathwater like periscopes. So she knew how she must appear to them. With a dried-up old pussy. More dust collector than sex organ. Nedra Carp giggled. The divine Mary Poppins had had her Bert, after all. Nedra was no libertine. Her juices happened not to flow in that direction, but she was no old maid. She’d had her ashes hauled, chim chim-i-ney, chim chim-i-ney, chim chim cheroo. It just wasn't that important, is all.

The nanny business was important, the nanny business was. And maybe, she thought, maybe you had to go around in a sort of disguise. Maybe other people’s stereotypes protected you, kept you hidden, quiet, wrapped up in cotton wool and otherwise engaged.

Because all her life she’d never forgiven them for abandoning her, all her life picked at her resentment, worried her loco parentis history, nursed her injured-Gretel misgivings.

And all because of the formative years, Nedra thought bitterly. The formative years. That small, not even full handful of kiddie time when anything that was not already stuffed into the genes—and for Nedra, as for Mary, between nature and nurture it was no contest—must be packed into the child like a kind of tuck pointing. If, as the poet said, the child was father to the man, the stepmothers, governesses, step-relations, and nannies were worth all the rest of relation. Particularly the nannies. (Because children that small would not have heard about stereotypes yet, would, before memory kicked in, have taken their imprinting from the available, anyone near at hand, anyone bigger or older or stronger than oneself, anyone: a close distant cousin would do; the upstairs maid; the lad from the greengrocer’s.) But particularly the nannies. Who drew, she recalled, the bath, and adjusted the temperature of the water, who came with towels of great thickness, the cozy naps and piles of love, who managed one’s meat and, later, held one’s small, still imperfect hands to the cutlery and guided one’s movements over the joint, who gave lessons in spreading jam and buttering toast, who offered the hankie as if it were a rose, who rinsed the cut and kissed the bruise, who showed the picture books, all the abecedarian “A is for Apple, B is for Bird” lap tutorials, and read the storybooks in the safe and serious weather of the quilt or blanket, who did first for the body the stations of kindness and later, like choirmasters prompting hymn, mouthed the close and intimate terms of prayer (kindness here, too: some infant
noblesse oblige,
and even the names of rivals offered to God, of detractors and enemies, the by-now thinned and thinning not-even consanguineous and imperfectly understood merely legal relation). And, still later yet, ministered to the soul itself, explaining, explaining away, the sudden breaches of faith and inexplicable hostilities of once close distant cousins. Taking actual instruction from them, a sort of convert, a sort of catechumen—no Catholic, she attended Mass as often as possible; it wasn’t the ceremony or the gorgeous trappings that attracted her, it was the absolute conviction and authority—it was to her nannies she turned whenever she felt confused, had run out of lessons she could apply to a new situation—Nedra was in command of many solutions and hundreds of explanations but few principles—seeking, though she didn’t know this, hadn’t learned it yet, neither explanations nor principles but only the old cocoa comforts. It was to a nanny she’d turned (though she’d outgrown them, no longer had one, was with the governesses now and had, since her own had left and this was a new girl, even lost the right to call her Nanny, though she did anyway, not realizing that in doing so—it was a different nanny who’d provided this explanation too, though to Nedra it would forever after seem a principle—she had unwittingly placed herself in a kind of authority over the girl, compromised the title, that only a present or former charge, employer, or fellow employee of the household retained that particular privilege—she said “privilege”—) to explain her period, a nanny who’d explained, explained away, her half brother’s cold warning that they could no longer enjoy, once the twins were born and he had a new half sister and half brother of his own, their special relationship. (“He’s sucking up to them, miss.”) The nannies whom she relied on for comfort and depended upon for what she still thought of as love. Except that they moved on too, were, in that department at least, as unreliable and transient as real mothers and fathers. And was shocked to discover that they were actually paid, were in it for money, were not merely some distant sort of relation themselves, like a kind of Cinderella, say, two or three times removed. (And, although she’d be the first to admit—admit to herself since it was no one else’s business and could only hurt others if it ever got out—that hers was hired-hand love too, Nedra Carp wasn’t in it for the money. For one, she had money.)

Who now waited for others to turn to her. Assuming, on those rare occasions when they did, the very same poses and attitudes her own nannies had assumed. Vaguely abstracted, detached, as if she wore imaginary shawls about her shoulders and had been come upon knitting, an aura of an old-aunty love clinging to her like some musty, foolish dignity.

Rena Morgan looked up from
the
television set, turned low so as not to disturb Lydia Conscience’s sleep.

“Was Prince Andrew brave?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Prince Andrew. Was he brave?”

“Oh, very brave, dear.”

“Even when he was small?”

“A little hero.”

“So you weren’t surprised when he went off to fight the Argies?”

“I expected it.”

“You did?”

“I was only surprised it took him so long.”

“Bravery is important, isn’t it, Nanny?”

“Quite important, dear. Valor is the
sine qua non
of gentlemen.”

“Of ladies too. Anyway, I should have thought so.”

“Bravery in men, patience in ladies.”

“Do you think so?”

“Women, well-brought-up women, don’t have the upper- body strength for true bravery.”

“When push comes to shove, do you mean?”

“What a clever way to put it! What a very bright little girl you are!”

“Thank you, Nanny, but there are many things I don’t understand.”

“If something’s troubling you, Rena dear, perhaps I can be of some help. Has that Janet Order been bothering you?”

“Janet Order?”

“She seems quite cheeky to me, and, though I shouldn’t be the one to say it, her blue color does put one off so. I noticed that you just picked at your food today. Your four basic food groups are extremely important, you know. If it’s Janet who’s putting you off your feed, I think I can arrange with Mister Moorhead and Mister Bale for you and Lydia to take your meals separately.”

“I like Janet.”

“What a
charitable
girl as well!”

“As a matter of fact, Nanny, it’s something you said just now.”

“What? Something
I
said? I don’t know what it could have been then, dear, I’m sure.”

“That bit about bravery in men, patience in ladies.”

“Calm endurance, dear. Tolerant imperturbability. Forebearance, resignation, and submission.”

“Janet isn’t in the least submissive, and I shouldn’t have thought to have called her resigned.”

“Ah, but I was talking about
ladies.”

“Yes. Bravery in men, patience in ladies.”

“Just so.”

“I think Janet Order is brave,” Rena said. “If I’d her complexion I think I should have it whitewashed, hide it away as I do my handkerchiefs.”

“Show consideration for the feelings of others, yes.”

“For myself, rather. People stare. She takes no notice.”

“Cheeky.”

“Courage.”

“If you say so, dear,” Nedra Carp said, returning to her imaginary knitting.

“I wonder if I could go down to the game room,” Rena said after a while.

“What, the
game
room? At this time of night? It’s almost gone nine. That Miss Cottle’s nowhere about. Lydia’s sleeping, but what if she should wake up? Of course I
could
leave a note.”

“No,” Rena said, “she might not find it.”

“Oh, don’t fear on that score. Nanny would leave it somewhere she’d be certain to find it.”

“She’s in a new place. She could panic. There might be something she needs.”

“Mister Moorhead’s just ’cross the hall. Mister Bale and that nurse are the next room over.”

“Do you suppose she’d think of all that in those first moments of terror?”

“And thoughtful too! I like that in my girls.”

“Nanny, I’m not thoughtful or considerate either. Nor charitable nor even all that clever.”

“And
modest!”

“When I asked you that about Prince Andrew before, about his being brave—well, you know that’s a quality I very much admire.”

“What very lovely values you have, dear,” Nedra Carp said.

“It’s a quality I very much aspire to, Nanny,” the child said.

“That’s
very
noble.”

“That’s why I want to go down to the game room by myself.”

“By
yourself?
By
yourself?
But you’re dying, dear. It’s quite out of the question.”

“It’s
because
I’m dying that I have to be brave. I’ve this awful cystic fibrosis which the doctors can’t seem to control, and I go about with all this linen folded up my sleeves. I haven’t the courage to be seen blowing my nose, Nanny. I just thought if I went down to the game room by myself for an hour or so and
let
people stare—they know us here, you know, they see us traveling with our caretakers like this clan of the doomed, and after that scene in the restaurant this morning, and whatever it was that happened to the boys at the Haunted Mansion—healthy kids, kids my own age: well, I just thought they might think better of us, and of me—of me, I admit it—if they saw us one at a time once in a while. Please, Nanny.
Please.”

“You’d play those arcade games?”

“Yes,” Rena said.

“They’re very stimulating. You could become overexcited.”

“I’ll just have to learn to control it.”

“What if someone teases you? Children can be quite cruel. It could bring on an attack.”

Rena opened her purse, showed Nedra a single white handkerchief. “This will have to serve then, won’t it?”

“Well.” Nedra considered. “This
is
a situation. For my part I think you’re already very brave. Thoughtful, charitable, considerate, clever. Lovely values, just lovely. You’re doing this as much for the others as you are for yourself. You are, aren’t you, Rena? You’re showing the flag, aren’t you, dear?”

“Yes, Nanny,” the child said, looking down.

“It isn’t an easy decision. I have to parse this,” Nedra Carp said. “You’re dangerously ill with a condition that makes you subject to devastating attacks. You mean deliberately to put yourself in harm’s way. Knowing full well that people recognize you, you mean to encourage one of your attacks by going to a place which would tax the resistance of even a normal child. Moreover, rather than provide yourself with your usual aids—I didn’t see your inhalator when you opened your purse just now, did I?—you mean to go down to that game room with a single handkerchief, one or two less than a child might carry who merely suffers from a common cold. Is that about it?”

“Yes, Nanny.”

“It’s a dangerous game you’re playing, dear, a dangerous game indeed.”

“But that’s just the point of it, Nanny.”

“Oh, I understand the point of it, child.”

“Yes, Nanny.”

“But do
you
understand that Nanny is responsible for you? Do
you
understand that if anything…well, untoward should happen to you during the course of this…adventure, Nanny could, and quite properly, be brought up on charges, and that almost certainly it would mean the end of the dream holiday?”

“Yes, Nanny.”

“Yet you’re still willing to put your friends’ pleasure and your nanny in jeopardy—and yourself, yourself too—just to prove some quite abstract point that no one is ever likely to understand? I do not make exception of your dear parents. Do you see the ramifications of all this, Rena?”

“Yes, Nanny.”

“Cause all that trouble all for the sake of a vague principle?”

“Yes, Nanny.”

“An hour is out of the question. If you’re not back in the room within forty-five minutes I shall have hotel security bring you back,” Nedra Carp said.

“Thank you, Nanny.”

“Well, spit-spot, child! Spit-spot! The clock is ticking,” Nedra Carp said, and Rena Morgan, her inhalator banging against the pocket in her skirt and the rolled handkerchiefs she kept like magician’s silks along the sleeves of her dress absorbing her perspiration, ran off to meet Benny Maxine, who was already waiting for her outside Spirit World, the liquor store where by prearrangement they had agreed to meet at nine.

Colin Bible lurked—lurked was the word for it—in the health club of the Contemporary Resort Hotel. He loitered by the urinals, skulked near the stalls, slunk along the washstands, and insinuated himself at the electric hand-dry machines. He looked, he supposed, like a madman, like someone, all dignity drained, in throes, the rapturous fits of a not entirely undivided abandon, as if, by avoiding eye contact, he preserved some last-minute, merely technical remnant of sanity. He knew his type, he thought uneasily, had often enough recognized it in the Gents’ at the great Piccadilly and Baker Street, Knightsbridge and Oxford Circus underground stations. He did not even lack the obligatory newspaper, the peculiar faraway cast—put on, assumed as a disguise—to his expression. Nor did he bother to make a show of busying himself, heartily pretending to shake free the last drops of urine from his dick or noisily opening and slamming the stall doors as if he were all preoccupied urge and dither. Neither had he rolled up his shirt sleeves, his hands and forearms thickly lathered as a surgeon’s. Or stood by the electric hand-dry machines, waving off excess water with all the brio of a symphony conductor imposing a downbeat. He was not happy to hide, didn’t enjoy his stealthy camouflage, took no pleasure from his furtive tiptoe masquerade. It was only that he didn’t have the nerve to make an overture of his own—unless turning himself into something coy and clandestine was itself an overture—and didn’t believe the guy would recognize him. He thought, that is, that he would have to be picked up all over again, winked at again, his hand brushed a second time. This was the reason he made himself so suspicious looking, why he kept himself under wraps in his best suit among the men in their gym shorts and jogging outfits, posing in it as if it were a raincoat, why he leaned like a flirt beside the stationary bicycle, why he prowled surreptitiously between the Nautilus machines and pussyfooted along the treadmill and gym’s small track. It was the reason he snuck back and forth by the weight bench, why he snooped in the sauna and inferred himself past the rowing machine. It was because he didn’t think he’d be recognized that he so ostentatiously lay in ambush—lost and shrouded, a burrowed lay-low, a smoke screen, anonymous, covert, sequestered, disguised and reticenced and secluded, an inference, a stowaway.